Resistance is swirling all around us this week.

Are You Resisting Success?

Steven Pressfield, one of my heroes and the author of The War of Art, says in his new book Do The Work: “The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” 

All the more reason to go for it, right?

Another favorite piece of advice from Steven Pressfield is about how to choose which one of your ideas to pursue first: The one that scares you the most.

The Many, Many Forms of Resistance

Then today as I was reading “Week 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength” in The Artist’s Way, I found the concept of Resistance coming up big time. Julia Cameron talks about the creative blocks we come up with to avoid our art:

  • I’m too old. (age block)
  • What am I going to get out of it? (finished product block)
  • I’m too busy. (workaholism)
  • I have more important things to do first. (workaholism)
  • I have to overhaul my whole life first. (drama)

Taking Action to Overcome Resistance

Julia makes the point that we must take small, daily, creative actions to accomplish our creative goals rather than looking for one big sweeping gesture. This is one of my biggest pitfalls.

Steven Pressfield makes a similar point about showing up every day, to do the work.

Jennifer Louden says, “Just. Do. The. Writing.

Sonia Choquette taught us, “Suit up. Shut up. Show Up.” (I’m fairly certain she attributes this teaching to Julia Cameron herself.)

What To Do With All This

At the end of our session today, we outlined our Secret [Big] Dreams. “In a perfect world, I would secretly love to be a ______________.” My answer: A published author.

Then we identified our “true north” for that dream — the how-you-know-when-you-get-there goal. Mine: A real physical book published with a core group 0f raving fans.

We picked a mentor for that dream. (Mine: Steven Pressfield. Seems obvious!)

Then we identified a 5 year vision and a 1 year action plan. My one year action plan looked like this: Write regularly. Get clear on what to focus on.

So I asked myself, “Of all my ideas, what would scare me the most?” The answer: A creativity book. (Holy shit, Batman.)

My participants asked why — my “Who do I think I am?” stories come up fast. But I’m ready to go there anyway. So now I know what my book is about, and I can get to work on it along with my screenplay (which I’ve been working on this week, hurrah!). Yowza.

 

Jenna Avery
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

You can review our cookie policy here - Cookie Policy